MY NIGHT IN WITH LADY PENELOPE

March 2012

As a good uncle should I have been attending to the musical education of my niece (almost 5) and nephew (almost 3). Inevitably, given my own almost 40 year obsession with the Beatles, this has focused largely on the usual beginners’ favourites: Yellow Submarine, All Together Now, Rocky Raccoon etc.

This coincides with my sister’s determination that they should also be introduced to classic 60s and 70s children’s television. So they are already big fans of ‘Bagpuss’, ‘Stingray’ and ‘The Banana Splits’. Sadly ‘Hector’s House’ has been adjudged “really boring” and the DVD has been dispatched to the charity shop.

The big smash hit however has been ‘Thunderbirds’. I’m here to tell you it has everything for the modern audience ... rockets and cars for the younger boys, Lady Penelope’s fabulous pink outfits and the Alan / TinTin love interest for the older girls, while Parker’s popularity transcends age and gender. Even better, the stories are interesting enough for the adults and bear repeated viewing. Highly recommended. Lady Penelope and the boys frequently having a gasper on the go with a martini in the other hand, is an hilarious reminder of the conventions of the time - like a mini-’Mad Men’ filmed in Supermarionation.

The three of us were watching ‘Operation Crash-Dive’ at the weekend, in which a plane has to be retrieved from the seabed after sinister saboteurs have done their worst. (I won’t spoil the ending). Suddenly, out of nowhere my niece asked a question that I could not answer; a question that had never occurred to me; and one which frankly made a mockery of my claim to be a reasonably knowledgeable fan of the Fab Four. “Uncle Steven”, she said, “is Thunderbird 4 the same yellow submarine that the Beatles live in?”

I had never heard such a thing suggested before, but I said I would find out ...

And so I ask you ... was it?

Well ... Thunderbird 4 first appeared quite some way into the first series in an episode originally aired in the UK on 30th December 1965. That first series ended on 30th March 1966.

Ian McDonald in 'Revolution In The Head' has Paul writing the song in bed one night in early May 1966, with the recording beginning later that month.

So, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, and on behalf of my niece, I should like to formally put forward the theory that ‘Yellow Submarine’ was inspired by Paul having watched Thunderbirds - I’ll explain to her in a decade or so what he might have been smoking at the time.

Until someone can convince me otherwise I shall also be adding this to my list of 'interesting Beatles facts'. Perhaps you might do the same, and we can prompt some proper scholarly investigation. 

Mr Lewishon, are you reading this?

I have tickets to see Bob Dylan in Dublin in three weeks.  The last time I saw him live was in 2011 ...  

MY NIGHT WITH BOB DYLAN

26 October 2011

A few months ago ads began appearing for a series of concerts by Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler.

Now, there was a time when, to a generation of Golf-driving estate agents with rolled up Top Shop sleeves, this may have seemed like a dream ticket. That was however some 30 years ago – when Knopfler was dividing his time between fronting Dire Straits and assisting Bob Dylan to record “his best album since Blood On The Tracks”.™

In the intervening decades Dire Straits have become a guilty pleasure; the ‘Brothers In Arms’ CD, said to reside in almost every household, hidden behind an unread copy of 'A Brief History of Time’, a cracked Rubik’s cube and ‘The Lovers Guide’ on VHS.

For the record, I have never owned a copy of ‘Brothers in Arms’.

Dylan meanwhile has receded into and emerged from cultdom at least twice, and continues to tour to the delight of fans and the consternation of critics. I fall squarely into the former category. That said, I have seen some dreadful Dylan gigs in my time; but I also know that he has, at least as recently as 2009, remained capable of greatness on stage. His two Dublin gigs in 2009 were amongst the best of his shows that I have seen.

Did I really want to risk one more gig that might undo the memory of those 2009 highlights? Needless to say, I was on Ticketmaster faster than Oprah on a baked ham.

As arenas go, the O2 in Dublin is pretty great; and if it weren’t for the price of the beer I might actually live there. Our seats were in the stand, directly centre stage and in front of the sound desk. With very little fanfare Mark Knopfler and his band sauntered on to the stage, sauntered through a selection of dull fare set to a country jog beat, and sauntered off. It was, in the words of Pat Carty of this parish, an unholy snooze-fest. Knopfler comes across as a very rich man with no remaining ambitions, pursuing music as a hobby. His voice is a monotonous drone, and his band - slick and soulless - cannot seem to rise above the professional session men that they are.

To the visible dismay of the greying estate agents in their Designer at Debenhams™ blazers, who have given £20 to a man in a hat outside to keep an eye on their Audis parked on a vacant building site, there is not one song from his former band’s back catalogue. On the plus side there was no encore.

A quick turnaround and Dylan and his band take to the stage. Bob is stage left standing behind the keyboard which has been a feature of recent gigs. The opening song is a rocking version of ‘Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat’ with Charlie Sexton peeling off rockabilly riffs. Dylan remains behind the keyboard for ‘Don’t Think Twice’ which is pitched somewhere between a Cajun two-step and reggae light.

The first revelation is on ‘Things Have Changed’. The song is taken at a furious pace, Dylan out front dressed in a black skinny suit, wide brimmed white hat, and spats! Striking poses against the mic after every line, he resembles an aging negative of Michael Jackson. His voice is strong and clear and the sound is amazing.

The setlist is a balance of old and new. Staying centre stage for ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ Dylan rephrases each line to break up the rhythm and shamelessly plays to the crowd.

Picking up an electric guitar for ‘Spirit On The Water’, Bob delivers a truly dreadful solo that doesn’t stop; then heads back behind the keyboard for inspired readings of ‘Desolation Row’ and ‘Highway 61’ his organ fills are great and Charlie Sexton plays off each riff.

On ‘Forgetful Heart’ Dylan’s voice is in fine form – perhaps because this is still early in the tour – and it is a genuinely moving performance. This is a great band and a great singer.

The final three songs – Ballad of a Thin Man’, ‘Rolling Stone’ and ‘Watchtower’ - are the usual romp home. Interestingly, and in my recollection uniquely, on ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ there is echo on the refrain ... “Do ya! … (ya) … (ya) … Mr Jones?”

Thankfully there is no re-appearance from Mark Knopfler. I’d like to think he was standing in the wings, watching and learning but he was probably already back at the Travelodge, sipping Newcastle Brown Ale from a champagne flute and leafing through a copy of ‘Fret Fanciers Weekly’.

MY NIGHT WITH ROGER WATERS

14 May 2011

The O2 ‘Dome’ is a strange thing. A monument to ego and vanity, now re-tooled and re-made for a new century and a new purpose, it is a fitting venue for the presentation of Roger Water’s grand statement ...

Deliberately having chosen seats at the back of the floor seating, the better to take in the scale of what was about to happen, we are not disappointed. At each side of the venue there are partially built sections of the wall, with the customary Pink Floyd circular screen suspended above centre stage. The lights go down and the ‘I am Spartacus’ dialogue fills the arena. Whatever is about to happen, the declared intention is that we are all in this together.

The slow mournful opening refrain is shattered by the crushing riff of 'In The Flesh' as fireworks explode against a black and red imperial backdrop worthy of Albert Speer. As the song reaches a climax the stage is strafed with pyrotechnics, the sound of gunfire swirls around the audience and a Stuka crashes in to the wall taking out the top righthand section in a ball of flame.

A picture of Waters’ father fills the circular screen accompanied by brief biographical details: date of birth, occupation, date of death. The image fades and another takes its place, and another ... victims of other conflicts, an arab woman “activist”, a child killed in Iraq, a 911 firefighter, Jean Charles de Menezes - “civilian”. Slowly each brick in the wall is filled with the face of a casualty - a giant montage spanning the stage.

This opening section serves as a taster for all that follows. The original concept has been re-worked and expanded to take in the anti-war, anti-corporate themes that have run through all of Waters’ work since 1980.

In ‘Mother’ - sung by Waters as a duet with his younger self - the lyric ‘should I trust the government?’ is answered by the giant graffiti “No fucking way!” scrawled in Gerald Scarfe’s distinctive hand. The inflatable pig that drifts slowly overhead is defaced with anti-consumerist slogans. The Banksy inspired projections take a clear swipe at Apple; and Shell & Mercedes logos substitute for the falling bombs.

A children’s choir arrives onstage for Another Brick In The Wall, as does a giant inflatable teacher. The performance is memorable not for the panto-style sing-a-long but for the crowd rising as one, craning their necks at the first note of the guitar solo ... but it’s not HIM. Everyone sits.

The projections are simply astonishing. Graphics flow and merge into one another, sections of the wall seem to disappear, the wall itself appears to twist and distort. I have never seen a show as impressively staged.

‘Goodbye Cruel World’ closes the first half, as the final brick slips into place. During the intermission the wall is filled with the photographs of victims of conflict - each donated by friends or relatives.

Everyone knows that the big will-he-won’t-he moment is coming with ‘Comfortably Numb’. Waters is standing at the base of the giant towering wall and sure enough, as the chorus arrives, the spotlights pick out a balding man in a black T shirt standing on the top of wall. Ladies and gentlemen, David Gilmour is in the house. It is a truly spine-tingling moment. Fittingly, the solo is accompanied by the most impressive visual effect of the evening as Waters turns and punches a hole in the wall.

It is a hard act to follow, and the original Gerald Scarfe animations make an appearance during The Trial section. (Is there any more thankless task in rock that being Roger Waters’ mother?) Now dated, by comparison with what has gone before these animations reinforce the impression that technology has at last caught up sufficiently to allow Roger Waters to realise his original vision.

Ironically the physical tearing down of the wall itself can only be anti-climactic after the dazzling display of projections and lighting effects that precede it. Nevertheless the enthusiasm of the crowd is not affected. We know what should come next - a simple acoustic marching-band reprise of that opening theme amidst the rubble. Instead Rog walks alone to the centre of the stage to acknowledge the applause, to thank David Gilmour for ‘honouring’ him by appearing tonight and to invite him back on to the stage. The entire crowd are on their feet.

As Gilmour, mandolin in hand, walks out on to the stage there is more drama in Waters leaning in to embrace him than in anything we have seen earlier. For a brief moment, in that heady atmosphere, the rubble surrounding these two smiling men seems to take on yet another meaning. Then Waters mentions that there is ‘another remnant of our old band’ in the house and Nick Mason, clutching a tambourine, joins the two onstage. Around me middle-aged men seem to have something in their collective eye.

And in the end Waters makes his peace ... with one hand on Gilmour’s shoulder he acknowledges that 30 years ago when they made The Wall, he was a grumpy, disaffected bugger, “as young David can attest”, but expresses his happiness at being on this stage with this former bandmates.

The musicians slowly file from stage playing that refrain, leaving the three survivors to take their final bow.

MY NIGHT WITH THE RETURN OF DIPLOMAT

[23 December 2009]

"And so we gathered at the rather splendid Culloden Hotel to witness the return of Diplomat, the also-rans of the late 70s Belfast rock scene. Their first gig for 28 years, these are men who have neither played the guitar - nor peed standing up - for the best part of a decade. The occasion, the 50th birthday of the guitarist [name obviously withheld for legal reasons]; the audience, a select band of 150 invitees, friends and business acquaintances who simply hadn’t been quick enough off the mark with an excuse.

Diplomat’s hey day coincided with the worst privations of The Troubles – when they started it would be years before the security situation eased sufficiently to allow the inward flow of a sufficient supply of Eastern European gardeners, nannies, au pairs and street performers.

Back then of course we had to make our own entertainment; largely it has to be said by watching television – noses pressed to the screen trying to tell if Susan Stranks really wasn’t wearing a bra; thrilling to the homo-erotic subtext of Starsky & Hutch; and, later still, getting lost in the intricate weave of Kate O’Mara’s Triangle.

Thank God then for those few souls who blazed a trail … struggling to learn all three chords to 'Johnny B. Goode', so that the rest of us frankly didn’t have to bother. Men who had the vision to see that in those dark, dreary, fun-starved days people of Northern Ireland would turn out and pay good money to see almost anything.

Their career was brief, but for those few short years in Belfast they burned as brightly as a freshly hijacked Austin Princess. All we are left with now of course is a handful of demos, a few live recordings and the band members’ interminable anecdotes.

There are some moments when live music is a truly joyous and uplifting experience, and increasingly those moments are to be found in the company of jobbing musicians in small venues. It is however some years since Diplomat were jobbing musicians and, it has to be said, the Stuart Suite at the Culloden is a pretty big room.

Kicking off with a cover of Hawkwind’s seminal ‘Silver Machine’ we were in an instant transported back to the 1970s – spangles, space hoppers, and rubbish piled three foot high in the streets. This was a time when kiwi fruit was an antipodean insult, avocados were only a rumour, and olive oil could only be purchased from the chemist as a cure for ear-ache … which takes us back to the music.

The volume was a little on the low side, but fortunately the majority of the audience were in a position to discretely adjust their hearing aids.

An interesting medley lurched from ‘Get It On’ to ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ to Abba’s ‘Ring Ring’ and back to a Diplomat original ‘Let Me Out of My Cell Tonight’. To include an original composition in such exalted company, was some might say brave, others might say foolhardy. I on the other hand was always taught that if you can’t say something good, say nothing. The final segue gave us ‘No Particular Place To Go’ – which frankly explained why most of us were here in the first place.

The band then essayed a version of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ introduced with express “apologies to The Beatles”. I have to say that if I were representing the Beatles, it was an apology I would not have been minded to accept, however the band threw itself into the song with almost as much gusto as the guests attacked the buffet.

A band original ‘Hanged’ followed at a brisk trot. It is apparently a story of Western betrayal and intrigue; although as no lyric sheets had been handed out I cannot confirm this.  We were treated - and here I use that word in entirely the wrong sense - to ‘Teenager In Love’, which if nothing else proves these guys have long memories. 

A 20 minute version of ‘Johnny Be Goode’ finished off the set and, quite frankly, most of the audience. Afterwards, with the threat of future gigs hanging ominously in the air, the band accepted the plaudits of their families and fan and called out for Sanatogen and rubbing alcohol. The rest of us hit the bar.

Happy Birthday Mate!"

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH - MY NIGHT WITH STEPHEN STILLS

23 October 2008, 
Vicar Street,
Dublin

Last night I did something I’ve never done before – I walked out of a gig part way through. Stand up Stephen Stills.

The venue  is a small and fairly intimate club setting.  Tables, drinks and a clear view of the stage - a very civilised arrangement, and a genuine 'I was at Woodstock' star.

The opening number was 'Helplessly Hoping', with Stills on electric guitar backed by a three piece bass, drums and organ combo. No worse choice perhaps for exposing the fact that Stills’ voice is shot to hell. Stripped of any harmony vocal it was actually painful to listen to. It did not help that they appeared to have brought in the soundman from The Wheel Tappers and Shunters Club to mic up the drums – it made George Dawes sound like John Bonham etc.

The band then immediately left the stage and Stills ran through about 8 or 9 solo acoustic numbers.  These included a Dylan cover - 'Girl From The North Country' - and a very long rambling folk number to which he had written new words apparently. His guitar technique remains impressive, but again his voice was horribly exposed. I read an interview where he talked, in rather crass terms it has to be said, about a recent illness, and I can confirm that he does indeed sing like a man with erectile dysfunction.

After each song he stepped back from the mic and took a little bow, while a roadie brought on and plugged in a change of guitar. After every song! On occasion the roadie and guitar were shooed away to allow an extra bow. I should declare that I have always thought him more than a little smug, albeit that around 1968-1971 he had every reason to be; when he wasn't chilling in Laurel Canyon, he was hanging out at Apple with George Harrison, or recording with Jimi Hendrix.

Thoroughly bored I began to take notice of the sights & sounds around me. It was hard not to. Next to me was a man clapping loudly out of time, and yelling "Yee-haw!" at random, inappropriate moments. He was clearly a fan. You could feel his near hysteria as Stills launched into 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes'. The tension built as my neighbour waited for the Latin-tinged coda to kick in - a coiled spring of B.O. and anorak.

After a 20 minute interval the band returned. I noticed that the bass player looked like John Sergeant, dressed for the pasa doble – all skin-tight, silver buttoned ski-pants and shape throwing. I also realised that the band had been chosen so as to ensure that each of their foreheads was larger than Stephen’s. I noticed that the sound was appalling. Needless to say the crowd loved it.

One Tom Petty cover later, and midway through something that sounded like it may once have been ‘Rocky Mountain Way’, I made my excuses and left.

HOW I ACQUIRED AN ENCYCLOPAEDIC KNOWLEDGE OF ROCK MUSIC

The first LP that I remember buying, or rather asking my mother to buy for me, was the Beatles’ "A Collection of Oldies".   I am fairly sure that  this was because I had seen ‘Help!’ on TV.  I have a very clear recollection of watching the chase down the beach at the end of the film on our black and white TV. Of course these may be two completely unrelated events.

I think I was about 12 or 13 years old.   There were two Jim Reeves LPs in our house and a Max Bygraves cartridge for the 8-track player in the car.  This remarkable device had been bolted on below the dashboard in the passenger's footwell, on one memorable occasion dislocating a knee cap of a particularly rangy cousin.  My musical foundations were laid on very shaky ground.

Having said that, years later I discovered a reel to reel of ‘With The Beatles’ in the attic.  So perhaps my parents were cooler in their 20s than I ever gave them credit for; although it is more likely simply testament to the ubiquity of the Fab Four in 1963.

I still have that "A Collection of Oldies" LP.  It went briefly to live at a friend's house.  By that time I had all the tracks on other LPs so I swapped it for a copy of "Disraeli Gears".  Then I realised I had to have it back.  I really, really had to have it back - not just any copy; MY copy.  As I recall money changed hands to secure its return.

The Beatles were central to my teenage years.   Everything I did, every waking thought involved the Beatles.  Looking back now I find it quite unsettling that I became quite so focused.   This reached a peak around 1978-1980, just in time for John Lennon's demise; of which more later, perhaps.

Of course I had form.  There was a period years when I was 7 or 8 when I would not eat any meal at home unless there were baked beans on the plate.  Aged 5, I would only eat from "the stripey plate".  But these are childish things that are outgrown.  The Beatles were different. 

In R.E. I chose to do a project on Transcendental Meditation; English essays featured quotations from ‘Eleanor Rigby’; my art project was a collage of album covers.  You get the gist.

The point is that the Beatles were my entry point into the music we call pop, and provided - and still provide - a fixed point from which all else radiates out.  To this day my CDs organised on the basis that the Beatles are always in the top shelf, left hand corner.  Everything flows from that point - solo Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who and onwards and outwards.  These CDs are not alphabetised you understand; they are just there, and I know where they all are.  When I moved house they each reassumed their fixed position on some nice new shelves.

Did I mention that the first track played in a new house or a new car has to be a Beatles track?  

No?  Well, take it as read.

Whilst all around me the punk wars raged, I was keeping my head down and buying LPs by The Beatles, The Who, The Stones, Cream and well, Wings.  In the days before the internet, and in the absence of older siblings or hipster parents, there was of course no easy way of finding out about the music of a previous decade.  A chance encounter with a Tommy ('TV on the Radio') Vance show featuring the music of 1967 lead me to The Doors, Jefferson Airplane and The Velvet Underground.  That show featured 'Heroin' and 'White Rabbit' but it was 'Light My Fire' that impacted most on the pretentious 14 year old grammar school nerd.

A nerd and at 15 a school librarian, which involved a lapel badge and more importantly a pass on the General Studies class.  This allowed us to loll about the library for several hours a week drinking coffee and speculating whether or not the actual librarian wore a bra.  It's nice to have a hobby, at any age.  She was in her late fifties so I suspect the answer was yes, but it was an all boys school and our experience of female corsetry was limited.

Then, one otherwise unremarkable day, this librarian of undetermined corsetry found a book that had seemingly been stolen from the public library and left in the school. I was told to return it on my way home.  It was 'The NME Encyclopaedia of Rock'.  Needless to say it never made it back to its rightful owners.

This book really was a revelation; a pre-punk A-Z of classic rock with biographies, discographies, and almost as important actual pictures of album sleeves and band members.  I read that book from cover to cover; actually eventually the back cover fell off.  I underlined in red the albums I wanted, and ticked them off as I slowly edged towards the perfect collection.  I wrote in details of new albums as they were released. Looking at that book now it is clear that there was some fairly sophisticated code being applied - different coloured lines; some straight, some wavy; asterixes; little dots and crosses - the meaning of which has long since been forgotten.

I took it with me to university.  I read sections of it out loud to my fellow students.  We compared record collections and quizzed each other by reading out the opening lines of reviews to see who could identify the band or album in question.    It goes without saying that, perhaps consequently, my experience of female undergarments remained fairly limited during this period.

Even forty years on I can still quote reviews and the sarcastic captions to the photographs - a picture of Wings'  "Red Rose Speedway" bore the legend 'Too bad these was only room for Paul on the cover'.

I never met anyone else who had this book, although recently David Hepworth tweeted a photograph of his.  If you ever come across a copy in a second hand book shop I highly recommend its purchase.  Of course it is essential that you get the edition that includes Gentle Giant, sadly absent from later editions, and that completely omits reference to anything that occurred after 1975.  Of course, I suspect David Hepworth's edition finishes in 1971.

This is a new blog.

'New' in the sense that I have just created it, or more correctly allowed some unfathomable algorithm to create it.  It will hopefully comprise some new, but also some old that has already appeared elsewhere; mostly music related, but random content may occur.